3 ms·

Now, I don't necessarily disagree that it's a bad idea overall, but the anthropomorphic quality is NOT what makes this absurd. Not at all, not even a little.

by Fordrus 10y ago

Now, I don't necessarily disagree that it's a bad idea overall, but the anthropomorphic quality is NOT what makes this absurd. Not at all, not even a little. An abstract organization of people can be invested in, have its collective behavior driven by regulation or investment pressures, and can, out of 'fear' of losing value, allow regulation to override investor pressure. The point of things like massive fines and suggestions like the corporate death penalty is to create a situation where a CEO or VP will, despite knowing there's a lot of money to be made by, say, selling protected patient health information (and therefore substantial shareholder value to be generated from so doing), categorically refuse to do it, because they know the ensuing violations will ruin/bankrupt the company. In other words, if you told me that anthropomorphizing an organization like this were absurd on its face, I would accuse you of rank ignorance of the law, the rationale behind the law, and the whole idea of behavioral incentivization. The reason why we're all discussing this AT ALL is because the fines are often losing their ability to disincentivize the bad behavior - if a company can make 19 billion in a year using only 1 billion, and then be fined for 15 billion, then they can pay the fine can and pocket the 3 billion difference, and report a hefty profit to shareholders. Trying to influence collective behavior through incentives and disincentives is not 'absurd on its face,' dionidium, and I challenge your grasp of the overall context for asserting that it is.

dionidium 10y ago
That's all fine, but we have a far simpler alternative, which is to punish individuals when they break the law. There is no need to target the organization when you can target individual lawbreakers.
- Fordrus 10y ago
  Except that this allows organizations to participate in fallguyism. Organizations that cannot be punished and individuals who can create an effect where the individual can do something illegal but extremely beneficial for the corporation, bear the consequences, and then be received into lifelong benefits after their punishment is complete, jail time over, etc. The extreme rub here is that even if an individual is hit with a finance demolishing, unbankruptable fine and extended jail time, that individual's situation can STILL be VASTLY improved, finances strengthened, etc. by being the fall guy for a large organization. (If you've ever thought, "I would go to jail for ten years if I got 10 million dollars at the end," then you understand the incentive structure there already.) There is no way to effectively punish saavy, loyal individuals when individuals from within their respective organizations can shelter them from the consequences and/or incentivize them to break the law despite the consequences. If the whole matter is implicit, it doesn't even necessarily require the organization to 'rescue' their fall guy afterwards, people are just another resource in an organization, if the benefit to the organization of breaking the law is greater than the benefit the organization derives from the person who would ultimately be the fall guy, then even the potential of a 'rescue' is enough, if the incentives are otherwise strong enough! Only if BOTH the individual AND the organization must pay a price for misbehavior is it possible to truly disincent illegal but profitable behavior. Under your scenario, an organization can simply shuffle through its minions until it finds one willing to break the law and offer the profits for a given incentive package- indeed, organizations under your model are incentivized to seek out and hire criminals who lack analytical depth, and then implicitly make the desired course clear, and then allow the criminal to take the fall for them, while the organization and its investors pocket the profits.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    We can 1) punish people who hire others to commit crimes for them; 2) punish groups of individuals for conspiracy.

by Fordrus 10y ago

dionidium 10y ago

That's all fine, but we have a far simpler alternative, which is to punish individuals when they break the law. There is no need to target the organization when you can target individual lawbreakers.

Fordrus 10y ago
Except that this allows organizations to participate in fallguyism. Organizations that cannot be punished and individuals who can create an effect where the individual can do something illegal but extremely beneficial for the corporation, bear the consequences, and then be received into lifelong benefits after their punishment is complete, jail time over, etc. The extreme rub here is that even if an individual is hit with a finance demolishing, unbankruptable fine and extended jail time, that individual's situation can STILL be VASTLY improved, finances strengthened, etc. by being the fall guy for a large organization. (If you've ever thought, "I would go to jail for ten years if I got 10 million dollars at the end," then you understand the incentive structure there already.) There is no way to effectively punish saavy, loyal individuals when individuals from within their respective organizations can shelter them from the consequences and/or incentivize them to break the law despite the consequences. If the whole matter is implicit, it doesn't even necessarily require the organization to 'rescue' their fall guy afterwards, people are just another resource in an organization, if the benefit to the organization of breaking the law is greater than the benefit the organization derives from the person who would ultimately be the fall guy, then even the potential of a 'rescue' is enough, if the incentives are otherwise strong enough! Only if BOTH the individual AND the organization must pay a price for misbehavior is it possible to truly disincent illegal but profitable behavior. Under your scenario, an organization can simply shuffle through its minions until it finds one willing to break the law and offer the profits for a given incentive package- indeed, organizations under your model are incentivized to seek out and hire criminals who lack analytical depth, and then implicitly make the desired course clear, and then allow the criminal to take the fall for them, while the organization and its investors pocket the profits.
- dionidium 10y ago
  We can 1) punish people who hire others to commit crimes for them; 2) punish groups of individuals for conspiracy.